There is a gag that I first saw in the Ken Brooke manuscript that came with the Nemo Rising Cards, which I purchased in the early 1980's. It must have been around since the 1970's if not before. This is the use of an eggbeater as a thought transmitter.

Does anyone know of any earlier use of this?

Unless my mind is clouded again, I recall "Granny" Harris using it in the early 70's, but can't put any more accurate a date on it.

A version of this was written up in Hugard's Magic Monthly, July 1947 by Clayton Rawson. It uses an egg beater as a "Little Wonder Double-Action Oscillating Thought Projector" and a tri-fold panel containing the egg beater. The container has the "business" on the other side.

Rawson lists this as an example of "old wine in a new bottle", but doesn't reference if this relates to the egg beater, the telepathic angle or merely having the audience in on the gag. No credits.

Bill -- I'd be happy to send this to you.

I think that Roy Kissel used this pre-Ken Brook but I can't put my finger on the book. It might be in Karrell Fox's first book.

Richard

I cannot say for sure whether or not he originated it (and, unfortunately, since he is no longer with us I am unable to ask him), but I DO know that my father was using this gag in the 1930s at club dates and while doing "hideaway time" in vaudeville during the summer months -- and I still use his routine, as he taught it to me, in my own show from time to time. In his, and my, routine a card is forced on the participating audience member who looks at it, remembers it and puts it in his pocket. After some byplay, during which the performer fails to correctly identify the chosen card, the performer produces the "thought projector" and explains its use, then hands it to the participant who is instructed to "project your thoughts of the card" to the audience. As he does so, the performer gestures to the audience with the clipboard on which he previously drew the number and suit of the wrong card -- the jumbo card duplicate of the chosen/forced card is glued to the back of the clipboard and, on cue, the audience, with one voice, shouts the identity of the card to the amazement of the participating "projector" who is advised "Don't bother asking any of them how they did it -- it's highly technical and they'd never be able to explain it to you."

My father often told the story of how, during a show, while the volunteer on stage was busy "projecting," a woman in the audience stood up and announced in a loud voice "yes . . . I'm getting an image . . . it's coming in clearer now . . . yes, yes, . . . I can see it . . ." as my father, thinking that this was great and really building up the gag, kept egging her on until she finally shouted out THE WRONG CARD and he realized that she really thought she was actually getting a psychic message.

As I said, I don't know if my father (who performed a vent and magic act as "Leonard Allen") originated the bit or not -- he was known to have claimed or at least accepted credit for ideas he "borrowed" from (or was taught by) others. He even appeared on TV with his vent act BEFORE 1936. His signature piece, which I believe he WAS the first to do (the idea having been given to him by the amateur magician and well known patent attorney James C. Wobensmith, who also happened to be the father of Dad's boyhood pal Zachary T. Wobensmith) was to appear to drink a quart of milk through a straw (from a Demuth bottle) while the dummy (made by Frank Marshall, the noted Chicago carver of vent figures) sang "Shanty in old shanty town" -- a popular song of the day. I still have Dad's original Demuth milk bottle and "Johnny Hawthorne," the Marshall vent figure he used and which he had refurbished and gave to me in 1948 or 49 when I started doing my own act (under his tutelage, but sans the milk bottle bit because I can't sing worth a ***) at the age of 11 or 12.

Until someone comes up with an earlier reference, I'm willing to give my late father, the not-too-widely-known but fondly remembered, Jack Christian a.k.a. "Leonard Allen" credit for originating the classic "thought projector" comedy routine.

Great story Dick! Vaudeville artists often "borrowed" ideas from each other. Since television was not around, unless someone you saw you live and the second person; it was not a problem. However some of the guys were very territorial. Later as the vaudeville artists made their way to radio and television, they were often accused of stealing other's materials. Milton Berle was often criticized for this. Some things never change.


Richard

Thanks very much. That gives me plenty of information.

The earliest print reference I could find was Clayton Rawson's "How to Entertain Children with Magic You Can Do." It's on page 165, under the title "Modern Witchcraft." He called it "The Super Heterodyne Double-Oscillating Magic Projector."

Thanks, Steve. What's the publication date on the book? I need this for a project.

Posted: Nov 25, 2008 10:30pm
Never mind. I found the publication date. It was 1963. The Fine Art of Magic, which was published in 1948 also has it.

Posted: Nov 26, 2008 2:18am
Correction. The Fine Art of Magic has one of the elements of the routine in it, but not the eggbeater.

So, it looks like Steve's reference is the earliest.

Posted: Nov 26, 2008 2:11pm
I now have a 1947 reference, which is also by Clayton Rawson.

I remember seeing George Jason perform this at the Combined IBM-SAM convention in 1959 at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. (I was 16 and had just become an IBM member that January.) Jason was on a three-person mini-show with (I believe) Charlie Miller (opener), John Mulholland (middle act), and Jason (closer). The eggbeater trick was his closer and was really funny with his presentation.

As I recall--remember this was 50 years ago--Jason had a card selected by the spectator on stage. He then explained that the spectator should select someone in the audience to whom the spectator would transmit the name of the card. To make this work, Jason explained, the spectator would have to use an antenna, and he strapped a wierd-looking antenna contraption on the spectator's head. Then he gave the spectator the egg beater for the transmission and showed how to use it. He called it something like a "multi-phasic, reciprocating oscillator." And he mentioned that when not using it for transmitting, one could use it to beat eggs.

The transmission apparently did not work the first time, and Jason explained this was because the spectator was rotating the egg beater toward himself (which of course was the way Jason had demonstrated it.) Jason demonstrated "sending the thoughts" by rotating handle toward the audience. The spectator corrected this motion.

Then somehow (I do not remember how) Jason pulled on something on the antenna, which caused it to open up and reveal a jumbo card on top of the spectator's head. Finally, Jason asked the audience member--the thought receiver--to name the card, and he named the Jumbo card much to the amusement of all.

Jason was a funny guy so I am sure there were a lot more funny bits in the routine, but this was the biggest hit in the show--including the stuff from Miller and Mulholland. People were splitting their sides laughing at this.

Jim Mullen

Granny Harris was a WAC in World War 2. She did some manipulation of some wooden pins (looked like bowling pins) and also did the egg beater biz to reveal a card. While the buffoon was turning the egg beater, against his head, toward the audience, she simply picked up an enormous duplicate of the "forced" card and waved it around behind the buffoon. That would have marked her time doing this between 1943 and 1947. She could have very well gotten it from the Clayton Rawson (The Great Merlini), while she was a WAC.
Garry Hayes

Clayton first published this in Hugards Magic Monthly in the mid forties.

Just for the record, in my Nov. 21 post (above) I described my father featuring the eggbeater "thought projector" in his act in the 1930s although I cannot give you the year in which he began doing so. I can however, aver that my father joined the Navy and went through OCS (at that time known as "90 day wonder") training at Great Lakes in December 1942, and was away (mostly in the South Pacific) for the duration of the war. He did not perform either during or after the war, so any performances in which he presented his "thought projector" routine must certainly have taken place prior to December 1942 and there is every reason to believe that he was doing it as early as the 1930s.

Clayton was a long time pro and the fact that he published it in the forties most certainly means he'd been performing and perfecting it long before that. But he is the originator or tis routine and if you read the Hugards write up you'll see not only orihginated it but it was one of his signature pieces.

The true "origin" of this, or any other effect or routine, is at best, difficult to determine with any degree of assurance. I cannot claim with certainty that my father created or originated the routine -- nor would I deign to do so. What I can say with certainty is that he was doing it -- in his professional performances (vaudeville and club dates) -- before it was published by Clayton Rawson in the 1940s. Unlike Clayton Rawson, as far as I know, none of my father's material was ever published. As my father (and, I assume, Clayton Rawson) is deceased I doubt that any of those of us alive today can claim to know which, if either of them, originated the idea. My father never claimed to have originated it, only that it was one of his trademark/signature pieces -- and I do know of some things (not necessarily related to his performances) for which he was happy to take credit although I later learned that they did not originate with him. It is also well known that performers, not only in vaudeville and on the "club circuit," but throughout the history of entertainment "borrowed" from one another -- often without permission -- just as they do today. Accordingly, I submit that, until someone is able to provide irrefutable proof of the true origin of the idea (which is highly unlikely), rather than assert that any particular performer was the originator of the idea, it would be better to simply identify and acknowledge those known to have been among the earliest to have featured it in their performances. The fact that some of them may be more widely known than others should be irrelevant.

This is absolutely true. Remember that Richard Himber claimed to have invented many things that were simply adaptations from either children's toys or medical appliances. For example, the principle of the "Himber" wallet goes back to the early Renaissance. And it was Persi Diaconis, not Richard Himber, who discovered the basic principle of the "Himber" ring as part of an adaptation of something used by arthritis sufferers.

Rawson may have had more time on his hands than some other performers. He wrote a lot of stuff.